FACE OFF

Carlos Daniel Pérez Moreno – Video from the exhibition at Väre – Helsinki, Finland – 2022

Face Off is an interactive installation. The artist’s face is floating in the room, and his eyes follow the person’s movement when they enter the field of view of the face. The spectator could interact with the floating face using facial gestures such as opening the mouth and blinking; also, the person can switch the face by passing their hand in front of their face.

Process, learning, and future.

In my journey through this project, I learned a lot of exciting and new approaches to physical interaction with electronics, mainly controlling the connections to TouchDesigner; that also is my first time using this amazing software.

Face tracking was the main topic of my research and work. I used Touch Designer FaceTrack Chop with a webcam as a tracking device. I was amazed at how accurate the tracking is in low-light conditions. I make gestures controllers with face gestures such as blinking and amount of mouth open. I made fun but simple face swapping with the Kinect by passing the hand in front of the face. I will like to continue doing more experiments with this idea of a facial gesture controller.

Learning how to use Face Track chop

Using the facial gestures and hand-swipped controller.

Video mapping and face mold. Inspired by one of Matti’s references about a human face projection in a 3D model from the inside (Madame Leota head in the Disney Hunted Mansion), I decided to use the same effect for projecting my face. First, I 3D printed my face on almost the same scale as my face, and then I made a mold of that with the vacuum former. Finally, I used Touch Designer to map my face’s model from behind the mold. This sounds simple, but it took me a while doing fail experiments, and lucky learning that the material used for the vacuum former is perfect for a behind projection.

Now that I know how to manage the setup for all the video projection and the facial gestures, I want to continue developing the original idea. Five faces are floating in the room talking, and when someone enters the space, they will be silent and just staring and following with the eyes of the person. The person can interact with the faces using facial gestures and try to make them talk.